Last of the American Girls
by OwlinAMinor
Summary: When Angel and Nudge decide to hold a Flock karaoke competition, hilarity and some Fax ensues.  Especially when Fang decides to sing a certain song by Green Day ...


**LAST OF THE AMERICAN GIRLS**

**Yay for a random Fax oneshot because I'm too lazy to work more on my crossover story while I wait for my beta to finish with it. **

**I typed this up while the rest of my family was watching a James Bond movie, so you better enjoy it. Or you owe me a James Bond movie.**

**This takes place about a year before The Angel Experiment.  
**

**Claimer of the Dis variety: I'm too lazy to write one.**

**Iggy: But you have to!**

**Me: No I don't. You can write it for me.**

**Iggy: I won't. Do it yourself.**

**Me: You do it. Unless you want to spend some quality time with my underwear ...**

**Iggy: FINE! OwlinAMinor doesn't own Maximum Ride - James Patterson does. She also doesn't own Last of the American Girls by Green Day or any of the other songs mentioned here.**

**

* * *

**

"Max Max Maaaax! I just got the best idea everrrr!" squealed a small (but unbelievingly loud) voice from the doorway of my room.

Sprawled on my navy-blue comforter in gray-and-white plaid flannel pants and an ancient green t-shirt, I looked up from The Hunger Games (the book I had been reading) to find Angel bouncing excitedly next to my gargantuan Bengal tiger poster. What? I can't be a fangirl for Bengal tigers? They're super-fast, some of the best hunters in the world, _and_ endangered. Just like us bird kids. What's not to like?

"Maaaax! Don't you want to hear my idea?" the winged menace yelled between bounces.

I sighed, which she took as a yes.

"Iggy and Gazzy finally got the new speakers to work for the computer, and Nudge found this really really awesome karaoke computer program online! Nobody is really doing anything right now, and it's too late to go outside, so she and I thought maybe we could have a karaoke competition! It would be so so soooo fun! We could give the winner a prize! Like not having to do chores for an entire week or something!" Angel explained this all in about one breath, which was actually pretty impressive, if you stop to think about it.

_Well, there goes my evening of finally finishing __The Hunger Games_, I thought sadly. Katniss Everdeen may think she has a hard life, what with the evil government, the bloodthirsty kids she's fighting, and the romance issues (in my opinion, those are pretty stupid; I mean, do you like Peeta or not? Make up your mind before I steal Iggy's bomb and explode your brains or something!) but does _she_ have to deal with hyper five-year-old mind-readers whose definition of "fun" is my definition of "torture"? I think not.

_It wouldn't be torture, it _would_ be fun! _Angel contradicted me in my head (would I ever get used to that?)_ Plus, Iggy's singing sucks, which I know you love to make fun of him for . . . _

Well, I couldn't argue with that one. Teasing Iggy is even more enjoyable than flying faster than a speeding bullet. Not that I actually _can_ fly faster than a speeding bullet. But that wasn't the point.

Not to mention that I've never heard Fang sing . . .

Hmm . . .

"I suppose that sounds fun," I told Angel in defeat.

"YAY!" Her extremely high-pitched squeal caused me to cover my poor, sensitive ears. "I'll go tell the others!"

* * *

Never tell Angel or Nudge I admitted this, but the karaoke competition did turn out not that bad. It couldn't even come close to reading The Hunger Games, but it was much better than . . . say . . . fighting a bunch of Erasers while in the midst of a hurricane. Or something similar.

As soon as the game's organizers brought all six of us into the living room, sat us down on the ancient brown leather sofa, and explained the rules, everyone immediately attempted to call going first.

I won't spare you the details of the argument that followed (who sang best, who sang worst, who needed to go first or else they'd have a nervous breakdown, who didn't really care but would prefer to go first, who stole the last piece of Bacon, etcetra), as it lasted for about half an hour and resulted in a wrestling match between Nudge and Gazzy that nearly broke the world's one and only teleporting lamp. At least, what Iggy said was the world's one and only teleporting lamp. I don't totally trust him, and neither would you, if your IQ was higher than that of a sea slug.

Eventually, we decided that we would compete in age order, youngest first and oldest last. Except for the last two. I absolutely positively surer-than-the-fact-that-chocolate-chip-cookies-will-dominate-the-world would _not_ go last. I begged Fang to switch with me, to which he simply shrugged in his ever strong-and-silent Fang-like way, so it was agreed.

Finally, the actual competition was able to commence, in a fashion full of laughter, horror, and a ton of other stuff I'm too lazy to list.

First was Angel, who sang Love Story by Taylor Swift, her angelic voice hitting every note just as precisely and beautifully (if not more) than Taylor herself.

Second, Gazzy sang Yellow Submarine by the Beatles, which was probably the only song he knew, as the Flock blasted it at least once a week. Apparently, all the singing prowess in his family had not gone to Angel, so he did fairly well.

After Gazzy, Nudge sang some High School Musical song or other. They all sound the same to me. In my the-farthest-from-expert-you-can-get opinion, her singing was terrible, but her enthusiasm and dancing more than made up for it.

Can we please just skip Iggy? You don't even _want_ to know what he sang.

. . .

Someone is going to bribe me with Bacon and chocolate chip cookies, aren't they?

I feel like such a pushover sometimes.

Fine.

Iggy sang Baby by Justin Bieber.

His singing is like a dying oboe.

Everyone knows that oboes sound like dying ducks. An oboe even _plays_ a duck in the symphony for Peter and the Wolf! And that duck dies!

. . . Please don't ask how I know that.

Anyway, on to Fang. Who surprised us all. Me not in the least.

After the last, horrific notes of Iggy's singing had faded away, Fang slid into the ancient, ready-to-collapse-any-second wooden chair we kept in front of the computer, and did some searching on the karaoke program.

Nobody spoke as we waited for him to find the song he wanted. One minute . . . two minutes . . . three minutes . . . ten minutes . . . ten years . . .

Okay, ignore the last one.

With a couple final, satisfied-sounding clicks (don't ask me how clicks can sound satisfying, okay? They just _can_.) the dark-clothed dark-winged teenager turned around and spoke his first words that evening to the sound of some opening guitar chords.

"This song . . . is for Max."

Before I could protest, or punch him, or strangle him, or hug him, or anything remotely violent, he began singing. And I completely ruled out the "hug him" option.

This is what Fang sang (huh, Fang sang, that rhymes! Cool!):

"_She puts her makeup on like graffiti on the walls of the heartland  
She's got her little book of conspiracies right in her hand  
She is paranoid like endangered species headed into extinction  
She is one of a kind, well, she's the last of the American girls"_

I didn't even want to hear any more. Fang needed to die. And soon. Like, before he could sing any more of that evil song soon. Okay, sure, I'm in an endangered species, I'm paranoid, I'm one of a kind . . . BUT I DO NOT WEAR MAKE-UP! NEVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE HAVE I WORN MAKE-UP AND NEVER WILL I WEAR MAKE-UP! I AM AN AVIAN AMERICAN! NOT A VALLEY GIRL!

I lunged for the atrocious disobeyer-of-the-Laws-of-Max (Never insult Max, never annoy Max, etcetra), but he jerked away before I could grab him and continued singing while I chased him around our humble abode, crashing into various pieces of furniture. As if I could care less, while that . . . that . . . word-that-I-can't-say-in-front-of-Angel was still breathing. And if you think that's an overreaction, just read what he was singing.

"_She wears her overcoat for the coming of the nuclear winter  
She is riding her bike like a fugitive of critical mass  
She's on a hunger strike for the ones who won't make it for dinner  
She makes enough to survive for a holiday of the working class  
She's a runaway of the establishment incorporated  
She won't cooperate, well, she's the last of the American girls"_

Okay, loyal Maxites (meaning followers of Max, of course – no, I am not trying to start my own cult, though that would be pretty fun) let us count the disobeyances of the Laws of Max in that stanza:

I don't own an overcoat.

What nuclear winter? Has anyone besides me heard of Global Warming?

I don't own a bike.

What is critical mass anyway?

I would never, ever, ever in my entire life go on a hunger strike. That is the most completely idiotic thing I have ever heard in my entire life. Except maybe the time Gazzy wanted to adopt a pet Godzilla. But that's another story.

Well, I do give holidays every so often . . . and I'm definitely a runaway . . . and I won't cooperate . . . so I guess I don't really have _that_ much problem with the last three lines . . . but the rest are still evil! Evil, malevolent, vile, wicked, and any other synonyms for evil you can think up.

After a particularly loud crash leaving me temporarily immobilized on the hard tile floor and he-who-must-not-be-named-and-no-I-wasn't-talking-about-Voldemort trapped underneath our kitchen table, I was forced to listen as he sung another verse.

"_She plays her vinyl records singing songs on the eve of destruction  
She's a sucker for all the criminals breaking the laws  
She will come in first for the end of Western civilization  
She's an endless war, she's a hero for the lost cause  
Like a hurricane in the heart of the devastation  
She's a natural disaster, she's the last of the American girls"_

Time to count the disobeyances of the Laws of Max in that stanza.

…

Um …

Okay, maybe there aren't any …

But I'm sure there will be some in the next stanza! There have to be!

During the next interlude, Iggy and Gazzy, who had been following us around encouraging he-who-must-not-be-named freed he-who-must-not-be-named from the kitchen table, and I had regained the use of most of my limbs. War was back on. Truces were nonexistent.

At least, they were, until using some strange tackle-kick-spin maneuver that I'm sure he-who-must-not-be-named had been practicing in his spare time (because, you know, he has no life . . . not that I do either . . . but that's beside the point) pinned me to the living room wall and sung the last stanza.

"_She puts her makeup on like graffiti on the walls of the heartland  
She's got her little book of conspiracies right in her hand  
She will come in first for the end of Western civilization  
She's a natural disaster, she's the last of the American girls"_

The wall was ice-cold and hard on my back, clad by only a tank top now as the shirt had been crumpled down around my waist during the fight, but I didn't notice. All I could feel was his closeness, his surprising warmth, his strong arms pressed around me, muscles taunt, face concentrating on singing without faltering.

I never noticed until now (as I was too busy trying to end his life before) . . . he really did have a nice voice.

Not like rock-star worthy or anything, but probably about a hundred times better than mine.

But as he leaned in and whispered the last line to me, all those thoughts disappeared like the sun during a thunderstorm.

"_She's a natural disaster, she's the last of the American girls"_

We were only a couple inches apart, and getting closer every second, like two magnets drawn to each other.

All I could think was _Fang . . . Fang . . . holy sweet whale carcass . . . I forgot to call him he-who-must-not-be-named . . . Fang . . ._

Who knows what would have happened if Nudge hadn't caused us to split apart like two halves of a piece of non-microwavable plastic that you put in the microwave by accident?

"ZOMG! THIS IS SO GOING ON YOUTUBE!"

* * *

"_She's a natural disaster, she's the last of the American girls"_

Smiling sadly, remembering that night, when he was literally _this close_ from their first kiss, he wished he was still with her, his own personal natural disaster.

But he wasn't.

He knew it would kill them all if he was, even if it killed him to not be.

But he could be strong. That was what he was made for, wasn't it? To be strong?

And he could be strong enough to do this. To do what he vowed never to do.

To leave her.

He creased the letter carefully, scrawled her name on the folded piece, set it down on the table, jumped out of the open window, and soon was soaring away into the cool, damp, moonlit night, like an eagle out to hunt.

He prayed with all his might that he would see her again.

* * *

**Iggy: No matter what Max says, it WAS the world's one and only teleporting lamp!**

**me: Sure, Iggy, sure. Did you peoples like the angst-y part at the end? I do, even though it makes me sad :(**

**Iggy: If you don't review ...**

**me: Horrible things will happen!**

**Iggy: Are you going to elaborate on that?**

**me: *holds up various knives, swords, bombs, Bacon, and Jayfeather's stick* Should I?**

**Iggy: I guess not. *cowers***


End file.
